For National Apprenticeship week 🙂
I met my younger self for coffee today.
We were both late and both swore we’d allowed enough time but had had a million things to do on-route. She looked perfect in her home-made clothes; it reminded me how much I loved sewing and question why I didn’t do that anymore.
We chatted and she was keen to know whether not going to Uni was the right thing. It was because of the boy she said, and because her sister had said she wouldn’t manage on a student grant … I reassured her that learning her trade the hard way, in industry, was the best thing she ever did, and that there were opportunities later in life for academics and that she should not let anything hold her back.
She asked whether she eventually reached her dream of working in Advertising ‘bright lights, big city’ … I said sort of, that her version of it as she grew older was tamer but no less of a ride, that living and working in London was epic, but motherhood made her whole and her dream of moving to New York went by the wayside. I told her she was the mum of two incredible boys, who make her so fiercely proud that she thinks her heart might burst, so she was glad that she had stayed. I also told her of the man she eventually met, the one that holds her steady even in her roughest days, and that how she should not worry, that she did eventually meet Mr Right.
She asked me about whether it would be ok to work for herself, and again I reassured her that despite the ups and downs that being her own boss would bring, it was the only way she could have ever survived. That it gave her a freedom and a pride that nothing else workwise ever does.
She was surprised to learn that she teaches, she didn’t think she’d ever have that sort of patience, but I explained that she takes such joy and passion in helping those starting out in their careers that it cements who she is, and she values now being able to give back the type of support that she received from so many dear friends along the way.
She said that she needed to go, that she had a train to London to catch – I laughed and told her not to fall over her feet on the platform this time!